Compared to unstable organic mesostructured materials, 3D inorganic materials at the nano-scale may be sculpted by the cooperative interactions of large organic molecules and soluble inorganic precursors, which give birth to a variety of durable mesostructured materials. In particular, silica, silicate and metal oxide are mesostructured materials which have been researched widely via various sol-gel chemical processes. Silica-based mesostructures are typically granular or powder types of products that have been synthesized from the co-assembly of binary organic-inorganic mixtures such as tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), structural directing agents such as surfactants, and amphiphilic block copolymer (BCP). Serial processes of solvent evaporation, subsequent treatment such as surface reconstruction, calcination, and in some cases thermal & high pressure treatment, always involve severe volume shrinkage.
Hence, one of the critical issues in silica-based mesostructures is orientation of pores and morphology in a continuous thin film on substrates. However, the pores aligned along the substrate plane are less suitable for the easy accessibility of analytes into the substrate which is necessary for separation and catalytic applications. Thus, many material scientists have endeavored to manufacture vertically oriented hexagonal mesoporous thin films because of their tremendous applicability in the fields of catalysis, optics, biosensors and bimolecular separation. The conventional approaches using binary mixtures of inorganic precursors and templates are problematic with inevitable catastrophic cracks or failure, because the thermal treatment step at the end of the process always induces severe residual stress due to large volume shrinkage. Recently, some unique approaches have been reported for vertically aligned mesoporous silica thin films on substrates, which include nano-scale epitaxial growth on repatterned surfaces, electrochemically induced self-assembly on conductive surfaces, and magnetic field assisted orientation at the small scale. However, such complicated methods being researched are limited in practical applications on large areas under precedent conditions. To date, the development of an accommodating method to form the robust silica-based porous films with lateral orientation on large and ordinary substrates still remains a challenging issue.
Furthermore, various nanoporous materials have been used as catalytic supports. Typically, it is known that catalyst components are selectively supported into pores or on the inner surface of pores; it enables the prevention of cohesion between catalyst particles, and also significantly reduces detachment of catalyst particles from the support. Then, the durability of a catalytic system is expected to be robust in the proceeding catalytic reaction under various conditions. In particular, ultra-fine gold particles, very mobile and large surface energies, tend to sinter easily at an elevated temperature. The sintering cohesion is undesirable inasmuch as the catalytic activity of gold tends to fall off as its particle size increases. Thus, there is a need to develop methods of depositing and immobilizing gold nanoparticles on a suitable support in a uniformly dispersed state.    (Non-Patent Document 1) Innocenzi, P., Malfatti, L., Kidchob, T. & Falcaro, P. 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